The Central government today informed the Bombay High Court that it’ll not notify about the formation of the fact-checking body under the IT Rules till July 5.
For identifying and tagging what is considered false or fake online news with respect to any activity of the Central government.
Therefore, the statement made before a division bench of Justices GS Patel and Neela Gokhale in response to a plea by a stand-up comic Kunal Kamra challenging to the recent amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules 2021).
The Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh and advocates Aditya Thakker and DP Singh appeared for the Union government have made the statement on specific instruction.
Therefore, he requested the division bench to list the plea for directions on June 8, 2023.
Senior Advocates Darius Khambata and Arti Raghavan, who appeared for Kamra, opposed the adjournment raising apprehension for the notification once it comes out, will apply to content retrospectively.
However, the court didn’t find this a reason to immediately hear a plea for the prayer on stay or suspension of rules amendment.
The court recorded in its order that, “The rule will not be operable for fact check unit till it is notified. Even if the matter is heard for ad-interim, it will require a full hearing, covering all ground and that is likely to be heard for final disposal. We do not see why the same material has to be heard twice when it can be disposed off at the stage of admission.”
The plea is now listed for a hearing on June 8.
Then, Kamra moved to the Court challenging the revised Rule 3(1)(b)(v) and seeking a declaration that Rule 3(i)(II)(A), (C) to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 be held ultra vires section 79 of the Information Technology Act and Article 14 and 19(1)(a), (g) of the Constitution.
Furthermore, his contention is that the amendment to the rule will lead to telecom service providers and social media intermediaries to take action against content flagged by the fact-checking unit.
After failing this, they would lose the safe harbour protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act (ITA).
MeitY’s affidavit has been opposed to the petition stating that false and misleading information could impact electoral democracy and weaken the trust of citizens in democratic institutions.
However, the division bench expressed its prima facie opinion that as opposed to the affidavit, the rules didn’t seem to offer protection to fair criticism of the government like parody and satire.
